This Time Next Year – and the last one

Wow. This was the final snippet that was supposed to post last night. Guess that was a blogging FAIL on my part. Hope everyone has enjoyed getting to know Dillon and Brenna! They were great characters to write, and I think the last pages of this story are some of the most romantic I've ever written!

Time ticked between them as if a clock were winding down, the second hand reaching for one more notch on the face before stopping. Dillon stayed where he was, waiting for Brenna to choose, her gaze searching his…tick…tick.

This wasn't the time or the place for attraction. They were snowbound with very few options for staying clear of each other. He shouldn't have pushed her into a decision that would change their dynamic. Because whatever happened next, this moment would always be in the way.

He was still waiting when Brenna looked away and turned off the fire beneath the skillet of bacon. She set the fork on the paper towel with the strips that were cooling. She wiped her palms on the seat of her jeans, tucked her hair behind her ears. Her chest rose and fell as she breathed, and Dillon's heart beat faster.

A step in reverse took her away from the stove, another brought her closer to his side of the kitchen. She moved slowly, though he didn't think her hesitance was uncertainty. Brenna Keating didn't strike him as someone who had trouble making up her mind.

He moved his hands to the counter at his sides, curled his fingers over the edge to keep from reaching for her and dragging her against him. He admitted to being a caveman, but that could wait. This was Brenna's show. His job was to follow her lead, to ignore the lust coiling around the base of his spine.

Her gaze was still on the floor when she reached him. She brought it up slowly, starting with his feet and taking in his legs, lingering between his thighs and his belt buckle, rising again to take her time at his chest and the hollow of his throat.

He tried not to swallow, failed, watched her watch the movement of his muscles before she reached his mouth. She lingered there the longest, catching her bottom lip with her teeth, then finally, finally, lifted her gaze to his.

"Are you sure?" Her husky voice scraped his nerves.

He gave her a single nod in answer. He didn't trust himself to speak. He'd say the wrong thing and scare her away. He wanted her right where she was, doing exactly what she was doing, even if she had yet to do anything at all.

As she rose on her tiptoes, her lashes shuttered down. He hated that. He wanted to see her eyes. But then she was there and nothing else mattered.

It was a first contact that hummed, that danced and arced, that sizzled. Her lips were as soft as he'd expected, but they moved on his with purpose. She hadn't come to play or to tease or to test the waters. The kiss was real and she meant it.